


Passion to Burn the World

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Carthak, Friendship, Gen, Honor, Passion, Politics, Romance, elopement, faith - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 07:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15480969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Zaimid's passion for Sarai frustrates and amuses Kaddar in equal measure. Set after Zaimid and Sarai elope to Carthak.





	Passion to Burn the World

Passion to Burn the World

“I didn’t wish for you to go to the Copper Isles at all.” Kaddar scowled into the chalice of white wine from Tusaine that he had more interest in swirling tempests in than drinking. He and Zaimid were seated across from each other—almost opposed to one another, Kaddar had the stray notion—on divans in a private parlor where Kaddar could berate the trusted, closest companion he had wanted to stay in Carthak to support him in his eternal effort to control a contrary Carthak. Instead Zaimid had eloped with a foreign girl and jeopardized the diplomatic relations with the Copper Isles. Zaimid had to be taken to task for that, but Kaddar hoped that the private setting would keep him from shaming the one friend he didn’t want to lose and from impugning his own imperial dignity should the tight hold he was maintaining on his temper snap. 

“There were people for me to cure and save in the Copper Isles, Kaddar.” Ever testing the boundaries between courtesy and offense, Zaimid inclined his head but addressed Kaddar with an informality that would have been impertinent from almost any other subject of Kaddar’s vast dominion. 

“There were plenty of people for you to cure and save in Carthak as I reminded you numerous times before your departure,” countered Kaddar curtly. He was still reeling from Zaimid’s fleeing to Carthak with the Lady Sarai. As Mother was fond of tartly observing, Zaimid would flirt with any female from nine to ninety-nine but Kaddar had never envisioned his friend being serious enough about any of these romances to elope with one of his conquests or to risk conflict between countries for the sake of an attractive girl. Zaimid might have finally found a love stronger than reasoning, as impossible as that was for Kaddar to believe. “Still, I concede your point that you managed to convince me against my better judgement to dispatch you to the Copper Isles on a goodwill mission to strengthen the diplomatic bonds between us and the Copper Isles. You failed to accomplish that, straining the ties between us and the Copper Isles to the breaking point when you kidnapped a high member of their nobility.” 

“I didn’t kidnap Sarai.” Zaimid’s eyes were ablaze with the passion for the headstrong girl from the Copper Isles that had made him risk burning their world to cinders around their ears. “To kidnap her, I would’ve needed to take her without her consent, and it was her will that I flee with her to Carthak. It was an elopement more than a kidnapping.” 

“Elopement can often be perceived as kidnapping when seen from a certain angle.” Kaddar sipped at his wine in an attempt to soothe frayed nerves. “In Carthak, we might be sympathetic to your romance, but in the Copper Isles, there’ll be outrage that you’ve absconded with one of their noble daughters. You taking her to Carthak will be regarded as an insult to her honor.” 

“I would never insult Sarai.” Zaimid had ever been a wooer of women but never tone to bring them to dishonor. The implication that he had done so to Lady Sarai obviously rattled him. Like many mages, he drank sparingly, but now he poured himself a heaping goblet of wine from the crystal decanter, and Kaddar could see the toll that fleeing from the Copper Isles with Lady Sarai had taken from the friend who even now he would be willing to wage war to protect. “I assure you that it wasn’t I who persuaded her to run away with me. It was she who begged me to take her away from the Copper Isles when she learned that her regents would compel her to wed a second cousin against her wishes. Being a gentleman, I couldn’t refuse to rescue a fair maiden in her distress, and she is still a maiden. We haven’t been married, and I won’t take advantage of her when she pleaded with me for help because she had nobody else to appeal to for salvation.” 

“Oh, Zaimid.” Kaddar shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose to trap the pressure building in his head before it could swallow his whole being. Kaddar had never doubted that his friend had been honorable with Lady Sarai. Lady Sarai sometimes seemed mournful of her lost homeland but never blamed Zaimid for stealing her from there, which meant there could be no question in Kaddar’s mind that she had chosen to come to Carthak. That didn’t surprise Kaddar. His friend had ever had too gentle, too compassionate a heart that extended too far. He would risk his life to heal impoverished strangers who would never be able to repay him, he would be as patient with the dimmest university students as he was with the brightest, and he had now surpassed himself by running away with the woman he loved, trying to save her but dancing on the knife’s edge of ruining her. “It’s not me you’ll have to convince you didn’t take advantage of Lady Sarai. It’s the inevitable angry envoys from the Copper Isles that will arrive here before the month is done, protesting your abduction of one of their noble daughters.” 

“They will want satisfaction from me for, as they will see it, stealing Sarai.” His goblet as drained as him, Zaimid placed it on the cypress table, the sound echoing off the marble walls in uneasy counterpoint to his voice as he said with a shakiness that tried to mask itself as calm, “If you deny them that, they’ll want to go to war to reclaim Sarai. If you’re reluctant to shield Sarai and me, we can flee again though I confess I don’t know to where.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. How could I fail to defend my chief healer and head of healing at the grandest university in the world?” scoffed Kaddar, abandoning imperial dignity long enough to snort at Zaimid’s passionate, honorable folly, which had created this mess for him to resolve in the first place. “I’ll go to war to protect you if need be, my old and faithful friend, but I’d prefer it didn’t come to war, and, given how Carthaki legions have thrashed the Copper Isles into submission in the past, the Copper Isles should be more eager to avoid war than I am once I remind them of their history where they prosper in our favor and collapse under our wrath.” 

The Copper Isles—dependent politically and militarily on Carthak and in Carthak’s cultural orbit since its colonization—were the child to Carthak’s mother in diplomatic terms, and, like a stern mother, Carthak wielded the rod of her armies to shatter resistance in the Copper Isles when diplomacy failed. An empire in the image of the Old Ones who had once crashed the gates of Thak City, Carthak rewarded cooperation with lavish riches and opportunities while destroying any challenge with brutal efficiency. 

Since the greatest power of Carthak would always be in the indescribable appeal that made other countries hesitant to fight the mysterious magnetism that drew them in, Kaddar added with a wry smile, “I’ll expect you to do your part in averting war with the Copper Isles by charming any envoys as thoroughly as you did Sarai. Finally a chance to use your flirtations for the benefit of the empire, Zaimid.” 

“Sarai is as passionate about the Copper Isles as I am about Carthak, Kaddar.” Zaimid’s grin was crooked as Kaddar’s. “Neither of us want to cause war between our countries.” 

“Then flatter”—Kaddar ordered—“and don’t let your passion for Lady Sarai and hers for you ruin everyone and everything you love.” 

“The Graveyard Hag herself granted Sarai and me the time we needed to escape.” There was roguish gleam in Zaimid’s gaze though his devotion to the Graveyard Hag stretching back to the days when Ozorne restricted temple worship and promoted himself as the only entity worthy of reverence was never less than sincere. “Our elopement was ordained by the patroness of Carthak, Kaddar, and she will bless our union as she does Carthak.” 

Kaddar’s dedication to the Graveyard Hag was more cautious and tempered than his friend’s. Unlike Zaimid, he was bitter at Carthak’s goddess for forsaking her country to his uncle’s tyranny. Still, the memory of how the Graveyard Hag had unleashed a wildmage to rampage through the imperial palace to humble his uncle’s pride made Kaddar meticulous about displaying enough respect to the goddess who could topple emperors. “If the Graveyard Hag wills it, then only a fool would stand against it. Our patroness can reduce palaces to rubble if her passion is provoked.”


End file.
